


Winter Waltz

by healingqilin



Series: Four Seasons, Five Songs [3]
Category: Ailee (Musician), SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Babies, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Fluff, Married Couple, Married Life, Sad Attempt at Songwriting, if the pacing is weird...yeah it is but idw change it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 11:11:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12107457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/healingqilin/pseuds/healingqilin
Summary: Jihoon looks back at the events following his first son's birth, while Yejin looks forward to what their children's future may be like.





	Winter Waltz

**Author's Note:**

> Summary is most likely inaccurate, but that's what my brain churned out. Ehem, anyway. 
> 
> Enjoy! :)

“Wanna watch daddy make music?”

Jihoon sits his son Sejoon on his lap, the same as he did with Sejung and Seeun when they were his age. Sejoon babbles some baby words, the act making a bit of drool drip down his chin, which his father quickly wipes off with the hem of his shirt. While Jihoon boots up his PC, he allows his toddler to play around with the keyboard in front of him. Sejoon slams a few keys with his pudgy hands and squeals cheerfully at the discord it makes. As soon as the desktop background shows up, Jihoon pulls his son’s arms back, causing the little one to wail at the abrupt end and incompletion of his musical masterpiece.

“You’ll have your chance when you’re older, son,” Jihoon tells him. “For now, you can play with your toy piano.”

“Don’t want!” Sejoon yelps. He whines and squirms on his father’s lap. Jihoon has to roll his chair backward to keep the little boy from kicking the desk.

“You don’t want the toy piano mommy and I gave you for Christmas?”

“No! Big p’ano!”

“But the little piano is for babies like you,” Jihoon says, brushing the soft hair away from Sejoon’s forehead. “Big pianos are for big people like daddy.” He snickers at the irony of what he just said.

“I’m big!” Sejoon argues. His pale face is now becoming redder in frustration.

“Not yet, son. Look,” Jihoon puts out his hand and places his son’s hand over his palm, “your hand is small. Still smaller than daddy’s. When your hands are bigger, you can play the big piano all you want.”

Sejoon screams in retaliation. His older sisters were more behaved, Jihoon recalls. He could bring his daughters into his studio and not worry about them destroying anything. Except maybe for Sejung who snatched whatever she wanted. At least she never broke anything.

Jihoon traps Sejoon with his left arm. He sighs as he clicks open a folder from his PC’s desktop. He double-clicks on a music file, and as the music player starts up, he raises the volume of the speakers.

Sejoon screams once more. “P’ano! P’ano! P’ano! P’a…?”

The toddler slowly stops whining and squirming. Underneath his left hand, Jihoon could feel his son’s heartbeat return to its regular pre-tantrum pace. Sejoon goes limp in his father’s arm and he leans his head back against his father’s body.

“Recognize this song, don’t you?” Jihoon rubs his son’s tiny torso.

_Ever-fleeting winter prince_

_Like curious snowshoe rabbits_

_Change colors as the seasons go_

_Ever-resilient winter prince_

_Like the soft plum blossoms_

_In the coldest of days they grow_

_Ever-turbulent winter prince_

_Like the icy blizzards_

_Come from gentlest of wind and snow_

.

.

.

“Is he going to be okay?”

“Of course he is. He’s our son. He’s strong like his sisters.”

Among the mothers present in the hospital’s nursery, only one is shedding tears of worry. Yejin looks longingly at the incubator in front of her. She holds back a choke upon seeing a tube connected to her baby’s tiny nose. This is her third child with Jihoon, their first son, born a month too early and born smaller than a size 5 shoebox.

“Don’t worry. He’s fine. Just tired. Like you.” Jihoon rubs his wife’s shoulder.

The meds used for her C-section took a toll on her and she couldn’t look at any direction without feeling the need to throw up. Yejin had barely eaten after the birth. Even if Jihoon fed her something as simple to swallow as seaweed soup, it still triggered her gag reflex. Yet the discomfort she feels postpartum could never compare to seeing her baby boy lying inside a plastic box with tubes all around when he could be safe in her arms, in the warmth of her bosom.

Jihoon opens one of the little round doors of the box made to allow hands to access the inside. “You want to touch him?”

Without a word, Yejin inserts her hand through the hole. The initial touch of hers and her son’s fingers causes her eyes to heat and well up with more tears.

“Don’t cry, _yeobo_ ,” her husband whispers, rubbing her shoulder and pushing back the hair partly covering her face. “Look. See? He’s breathing. The doctors say it’s nothing too serious.” He opens the box’s other door nearest his son’s head and gently brushes his fingers over the smooth hair.

“It’s my fault.” Yejin’s voice cracks. “I suddenly got sick before giving birth to him and he came out sick too.”

“You know it’s not your fault. We’re in a hospital. There’s obviously a lot of sick people in here.”

Their son wriggles restlessly in the box. The snow white complexion he inherited from his father quickly changes into a blush red. He doesn’t cry _yet_ but his crumpled face says that he could at any time.

 

_Born in the winter_

_This beautiful you_

_Clean like snow_

_You who belong to me_

 

Yejin pauses weeping for a moment. She’s not surprised at her husband’s sudden singing to their newborn—a thing he has also done for their daughters—but rather the song itself. It’s become a tradition for Jihoon to write a lullaby for his children and sing it to them while they’re still in the womb. As expected, he also wrote one for their son, but this particular song he’s singing brings a different sort of familiarity to Yejin’s ears.

 

_Born in the winter_

_My lover_

_Clear as snow_

_You who belongs to me_

 

It’s one of the two songs Jihoon sang before he popped the question to her.

Her tears begin falling again.

 

_Regardless whether it’s spring, summer, autumn, or winter_

_Always clear and clean_

 

Jihoon could have chosen to sing their son’s lullaby, instead, he sings this. It confuses Yejin at first, but she soon understands why. Amidst the tears, she breaks into a smile. This once guitar-toting little boy whom she befriended as a trainee, who grew up into the man she fell in love with, and who is now a mature and understanding husband tugs at her heartstrings the nth time around.

Many praise him for his musical prowess yet few know why he’s considered one of the greats.

Producer Lee Jihoon understands his field well enough to know when and how to use music even if it’s not his own.

“He’s calming down,” Yejin says, relieved.

“And so are you,” Jihoon observes. “Are you feeling a little better now?”

Yejin rolls her baby’s big toe in between her fingers. “Yes,” she replies, her voice hardly above a whisper.

“That’s good.”

“We still have to name him.” There’s a bright feeling in her voice despite it sounding so faint. “You’re in charge of giving our children their Korean names. What do you have in mind for our son?”

Raising two toddlers barred the couple from sitting down just to think about names. Jihoon was thankful that Yejin decided to give a two-year gap between their second and their third this time. Of course, that didn’t do much. The struggle of handling two toddlers was still very real. After working in his studio, playing with his daughters, and tending to his pregnant wife, his mind would go blank by the time his head hit his pillow.  

Jihoon pinches the skin between his eyebrows. “It should start with a _Se_. Uh, so how does _Sejoon_ sound?”

“Sejoon? I like that. _Lee Sejoon_.”

“Any thoughts on his English name?”

Yejin chuckles. “I didn’t even have to think about it. It’s everywhere at this moment.”

Jihoon purses his lips to keep him from asking her if the meds have made her go loony. What could be everywhere at this moment? Doctors? Nurses? Patients? The color white?

“You even sang about it.”

Then it clicks.

“Wait…you mean—”

“Winter,” Yejin mutters.

“Winter,” mimics Jihoon, enunciating the R sound clearly at the end. Living with Yejin made him pick up her accent when saying English words.

“A little too cheesy?” She laughs at her suggestion.

“No, no,” Jihoon disagrees, “it’s perfect.”

Small and white like the snow bunnies, tough yet lovely to look at like the season’s plum blossoms. That is their son.

Their little Winter Lee.

.

.

.

Jihoon hadn’t realized that his son had already fallen asleep until he hears a knock on the door.

“Dearest?”

“Come in. I can’t get out of my chair.”

Yejin enters the studio holding a baby bottle in one hand and a small blanket hanging on her arm.

“If you’re looking for this little prince so he could drink his milk, well you’ve come too late,” Jihoon says.

“Oh no. I guess he’ll wake up once his tummy starts rumbling.” With her free arm, Yejin picks up her dozing baby boy. “He doesn’t usually fall asleep this early. Did you do something?”

“Yeah. I played his lullaby,” replies Jihoon. “And he had a tantrum before that.”

“What happened?” The tone in her voice had a tinge of both strictness and tenderness.

Jihoon swivels his chair towards his wife. “He started whining and crying when I told him to stop playing with my keyboard. I told him that he has his own—the one we gave him—and he had to wait until he’s a little older to learn to play the actual piano.”

“Tsk tsk, what an impatient baby you are,” she whispers to her son as she picks him up. Fast asleep, Sejoon remains unaware when his mother leaves a tender kiss on his smooth, plump cheek. Yejin turns to her husband and kisses his forehead before heading out the studio. “Don’t stay up too late, dearest.”

“I’ll try not to.” Jihoon smiles, emphasizing the bags under his eyes.

 

Two weeks later, Jihoon has a meeting with his client in a casual dining restaurant a fifteen-minute drive away from their house. According to his logic, since his client was gracious enough to meet him in Busan instead of Seoul, he has the home-court advantage and the right to bring his family along to have lunch with them. Sejung and Seeun didn’t worry him (Sejung thankfully outgrew her grab-shiny-thing-and-go phase), but his eldest’s rambunctious nature seemed to have been passed down to his only son. _Maybe if he’s busy with a full plate of food_ , Jihoon thinks to himself on the way to the restaurant. _Maybe if he’s playing with a toy, he’ll hopefully just stay put._

When the Lee family arrives at the venue, Jihoon is surprised that his client had arrived two minutes before them. He’s more surprised that his client is not alone.

“I apologize for making you wait.” Jihoon bows to his client.

“I apologize for coming here too early,” the man, Park Heonwoo, says with a sincere chuckle as he bows in return. He looks to be in his mid-twenties. Much younger than Jihoon. “I figured the train trip to Busan would take us a while. We left Seoul around seven just to be here on time.”

“I’m glad you made it,” Jihoon says, yet his eyes are towards the woman and the child on either side of his client. Heonwoo quickly assesses Jihoon’s confused look.

“Ah, I hope you don’t mind that I brought along my wife and my daughter.” He gestures to his family. “My wife was born and raised in Busan, and we haven’t visited in awhile. I thought, why not hit two birds with one stone, and let her and my daughter spend some time with my in-laws after this meeting.”

“It’s no problem at all,” Jihoon tells him. “I have my family with me as well. This is my wife, Lee Yejin, and our children—our eldest—Lee Sejung. Lee Seeun is our second child. And this is our youngest and only boy, Lee Sejoon.”

“This is my wife, Min Yeona, and this,” Heonwoo brings forward the little girl hiding bashfully behind his leg, “is our daughter, Park Ahri.”

“Hello!” Sejung greets the other girl. “How old are you?”

Ahri doesn’t respond and retreats behind her father’s leg.

“She just turned four,” Heonwoo replies in his daughter’s stead.

“I’m five,” Sejung shows Ahri her five fingers on her hand as if to prove her point, “so I’m older.”

“I’m sorry,” Yeona speaks. “Our Ahri is quite shy around new people.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Yejin says. “We understand. We have our own shrinking violet right here.” She caresses Seeun’s long, wavy locks.

The two families sit down to order food. While waiting for their lunch, the producer and his client begin business talks, and their wives begin sharing information from domestic tips to their own independent business plans. Sejung, Seeun, and Ahri color the paper placemats given to them as Sejoon plays the toy car he brought from home on his high-chair. All is well until Sejoon drops his car and it rolls under the next table.

To the mothers’ surprise, Ahri gets up from her seat and runs to the next table to retrieve Sejoon’s toy. After she returns it to him, Yejin leans to her son and says, “What will you say to her, Sejoonie?”

“Thank ooo,” Sejoon chirps.

Just as Ahri settles on her chair, Sejoon drops his toy again. It rolls under another nearby table.

“Sweetheart, stop dropping your toy. That’s wrong,” Yejin tells him as she proceeds to get his toy car back. She stumbles back when a blurred figure passes in front of her. Ahri zooms by once more to get the toy car, which she promptly gives to the toddler.

“Sejoon, that’s enough.” Yejin’s voice sounds sterner now that she’s caught on to her son’s little game.

The toddler doesn’t respond and purposely throws his toy across the aisle. As expected, Ahri leaves her seat to go get it, but this time, Sejoon gets off his seat and follows her. His legs are still too short that he penguin-runs towards her. Shocked by his sudden appearance, Ahri runs away from him with his toy in her hands. She dashes in between tables, miraculously not bumping into any. Sejoon continues to waddle after her as fast as he can. The unplanned game of tag sends both Ahri and Sejoon into fits of laughter, which eases the worried hearts of their respective parents.

“Aren’t we lucky we’re currently the only customers at the moment?” Jihoon says.

“Yes, thankfully,” Heonwoo answers.

Yejin pulls out her phone to record a video of the two playmates.

“Look at this,” she says. “My son, only two years old and he’s already chasing after the older girl. Now, who does he remind me of?” She pans the phone’s camera towards her husband glaring at her before giving off a smirk.

A staff member turns on the speakers of the restaurant to play some music. Jihoon snorts quietly at the establishment’s song choice: classical music for a casual dining restaurant. Normally they’d play the latest pop music. Ahri places the toy car on the table and grabs Sejoon’s little hands. She begins to sway side to side, putting him off-balance to whatever direction she pulls him into.

While watching Ahri teach Sejoon how to waltz—or what looks like a waltz—Yejin couldn’t help but giggle. Sejoon really looks like a baby version of his father who, despite his more matured face (and a bit of stubble, which Yejin admittedly found quite sexy on him), still has hints of his youth’s cuteness. Jihoon, too, was a horrible dancer the first time she met him. From her memory, he was just a cute 14-year-old boy who sang and carried a guitar around. She stopped training in Pledis before she could even see Jihoon improve. He _did_ improve, as she witnessed while judging his group’s performance on their pre-debut reality show. It was at that moment she realized his soft, round cheeks had sharpened, his gaze was more intense than she ever remembered it being, and he grew taller. Not as tall as the other boys, unfortunately, but tall enough that he would tower over her unless she wore heels. He was not her little Jihoon anymore. Yejin remembers how she swore she felt her heart skip a beat the first time in a long time she saw Jihoon again.

Her thoughts return to her baby boy and to her two baby girls. They’ll grow up too and find their own paths to take. They might fall in love and get married and have their own set of kids one day. They might be too busy to even give their ol’ mom and dad a call. Yejin shakes her head. It’s too early to think of that now. They’re still babies. And from now until whenever, they’ll always be her babies.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is so far my favorite piece in this series (until I start writing the fourth and final "season"). Sejoon is my personal favorite child among the Lee babies because I already have his teenage personality finalized in my head and he's just...interesting. I love his sisters too. But Sejoon will always be that odd one out (for other reasons despite being the only boy) and I love him for that. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Please leave some kudos/constructive comments/loving words before you go on with your lives! Last and final "season" is coming...uh, whenever. ^u^


End file.
